Jeff Nippard trained with Joe Bennett to reveal a back workout with three simple exercise tweaks to build your back valley. You may have done these exercises before, but you’ve likely never performed them with the cues Bennett provides.
Nippard is a fitness coach and natural bodybuilder, popular for sharing exercise breakdowns and fitness tips on social media. Bennett, known as the “Hypertrophy Coach,” is a strength coach with a master’s degree in exercise science and over a decade of experience in optimizing muscle growth.
The first exercise is a chest-supported row. The difference here? Bennett cued Nippard to keep his chest lifted rather than rounding over the pad.
Rounding out the back in this movement stretches out the erectors. But, if you maintain a lifted chest through the entire exercise, you’ll engage more of the mid-back muscles—like your rhomboids and mid traps—which can be tough to grow.
Pullups were exercise number two, with Bennett fine-tuning Nippard’s form to maximize the stretch on the lats. Before initiating the lift, Bennett had him slightly lean his chest up and back.
As Nippard pulled himself toward the bar, Bennett instructed him to stop just short of the top while keeping his elbows tucked in, ensuring the lats remain under constant tension.
Many gym-goers reserve deadlifts for lower-body workouts, but Bennett introduced Nippard to a Romanian deadlift variation that shifts more emphasis to the back. This version involves a deeper knee bend—lowering until the torso is parallel—and pausing briefly at the bottom to intensify back muscle engagement.
“They’re all small tweaks, but I thought they made a big difference,” Nippard said at the end of the session.
